Unsung Podcast

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Episode 223 - Clerks: Music from the Motion Picture

Your favourite dynamic duo return for the second week in a row as we chat about the soundtrack for Kevin Smith’s debut film, Clerks. This idea came to Chris at about a day’s notice, but it did give us at least enough time to think of a through line for this episode: the Clerks soundtrack is something of an anomaly. Whilst the film itself cost just over $27k to make, the licencing for the soundtrack actually cost more, coming in at $28k. Some of the music on this is used in the movie - Alice in Chains, The Jesus Lizard - and some was even commissioned for the film. For Gen Xers, this soundtrack is about authentic as it gets. Others tried and failed to capture some of the same energy that this one did (Empire Records springs to mind), and one could probably argue that the fact a Gen Xer has brought this Gen X soundtrack to the table, chatting about how it’s very authentically Gen X and “legit” is perhaps the most Gen X thing in the world. Or you could just argue that there’s actually something to be said for how this film, and indeed soundtrack, managed to capture a moment in the way that underground bands sometimes are able to capture the zeitgeist. Or in fact create their own movement out of nothing. What do you think? Defining moment in indie film soundtrack history?

Episode 222 - It's a Wonderful Life by Sparklehorse

From the mind of one auteur to another - this week things get a little darker and introspective as we discuss It’s a Wonderful Life, the third album by Sparklehorse. The career trajectory of Sparklehorse is an interesting, if ultimately tragic one. Moving from lo-fi, one man band recordings to working with multiple indie music legends, as slowly as Mark Linkous’ career evolved, it did seem as though he was an artist that was genuinely passionate about seeing how many different ways he could make music. Towards the end of his career, he also seemed very interested in making music with more people. Indeed, the last album by Sparklehorse, The Dark Night of the Soul, is not only a collaboration with Danger Mouse but every single song is a collaboration with different singer. It is about as far removed as you can get from the early days of playing every instrument on every song. Chris had a real hard time picking a Sparklehorse album because he felt that there’s not much between the first three albums. Nevertheless, he landed on this and we use this episode as a vessel to explore not just the band’s entire catalogue, but to talk about Mark Linkous’ life and death. So, for those unaware of Sparkhorse, here’s your trigger warning: we discuss suicide in this episode. Is this an unsung classic? Is this even their best album? Have a listen and find out…

Episode 221 - Tricentennial 2076 by Vyto B w/ Kapil Seshasayee

This week we are delighted to welcome back our good pal Kapil Seshasayee as he talks about his upcoming album, his latest single and how this particular album by Lithuanian-American musician Vyto B was a huge influence on his early work. Tricentennial 2076 is a contender for being the most obscure thing we’ve yet covered on this podcast. Borning in obscurity in 1976, its existence and the mystery of its creator seemed to grow in the decades since its inception. Due to a couple of exceptional pieces by The Chicago Reader in 2019, much of the mystery of who Vyto B is was made clear to the general public. Which is particularly great for a podcast like ours, and someone as elusive as Vyto B is just catnip for us. He claimed to have written hundreds of songs over the course of his career but most of it remains inaccessible. The music of his that is known though is fascinating. This album is a mixture between 70s acoustic folk and mental free-jazz piano pieces, all wrapped in a barely comprehensible sci-fi story set in post-apocalyptic America. Future records are all over the shop, and nothing at all like this. This week we dive into the man, the myth and the pseudo-legend, and also chat to Kapil about his latest single, which you can listen to here: https://youtu.be/hZqF9DFkW_A Next week - something very different from this indeed.

Episode 220 - Intros...#1 (Side B)

There’s probably not many podcast out there that would happily slam Meat Loaf, Oasis, Madonna and Cyndi Lauper together over the course of an episode, but that’s just what we do here at Unsung. And this week, things are going to get even weirder as we start to talk about some more of the first records that influenced us. No matter what you think of the albums on the last episode or this episode, the fact is that we are only here because we found them. Without those records, this podcast wouldn’t exist… In part two of our first “Intros” episode we talk about The Offspring, Nirvana, the OST from the film My Girl, Pulp and Sepultura. Let it be known, folks – the whiplash was real for this one. There’s really no fun way to transition from the 70s Motown/soul classics of the My Girl soundtrack into the ferocious groove metal of Sepultura. Neck injuries aside, doing this was a total blast and we can’t wait to revisit this concept with our other hosts, some guests and perhaps YOU GUYS. That’s right, stay tuned cause we’re going to find a way that we can get you to add your voice to our show from the comfort of your phone that is a little more internationally friendly than you simply leaving us a voicemail. Next week we’re either doing weird lo-fo singer songwriter or loud, 90s college rock.

Episode 219 - Intros...#1 (Side A)

Last week we said we were going to to Lil Kim but we’ve been unable to wrangle together the people needed to tackle it, so we’ve decided to launch a brand new feature instead called Intros. The idea is simple: we talk about the first albums we ever heard. We’ve split this down into three categories: The first one you remember playing a big role in your life courtesy of your parents or a family member; the first one you ever bought; and one that also hold special significance for you and is taken from that same formative period. Vicki joins us this week and in part one we tackle the first albums that made an impression on us that our parents own, before looking a little bit at some of the first albums we bought. We won’t reveal what they are here though: you’ll have to listen to find out! We plan to return to this concept regularly, and we’ll also be hoping for YOU to get involved. Stay tuned for more info on that. We’ll also be looking to get our other guests and some artists involved too, so let us know if you like this episode.

Episode 218 - Telltale Signs: Parsing the Ace of Base Nazi Rumours (Side B)

Much like last week, a warning before we begin: this episode contains the discussion of some fairly charged and unpleasant topics, including some deplorable ideas and music. Please be aware in advance that this show features some isolated samples and we’ve added them into this episode because we’re discussing a difficult topic and we trust our audience to exercise their own discretion. Hopefully you find this to be an informative and a cautionary journey. Enjoy! Last week we put Ace of Base in the context of the wider Swedish pop music movement, and how on the face of it, there’s really not that much about them that could lead for people to believe that they are some kind of secret Aryan pop project. This week we place the Nazi politics that Ufe courted in his teens into the wider context of Swedish politics itself. One of the members of that band he was in, Commit Suiside, went on to be the leader of Sweden’s far-right Sweden Democrats party. We interrogate that idea of them being some Nazi pop group and dive into the album The Sign, look at some of the ideas conveyed in the lyrics and also take some very strange articles about this band to task for a multitude of different reasons. And then, we reach our conclusions - are this band Nazis or not? A fun episode, if a little dark. Hopefully you stuck with us. Next week, we’re going in a vastly different direction… REMINDER: It’s record club shipping time and we’re sending some cracking albums to our subscribers. Want free albums every month? Find out more below!

Episode 217 - Telltale Signs: Parsing the Ace of Base Nazi Rumours (Side A)

Before we begin, this episode contains the discussion of some fairly charged and unpleasant topics, including some deplorable ideas and music. Please be aware in advance that this show features some isolated samples and we’ve added them into this episode because we’re discussing a difficult topic and we trust our audience to exercise their own discretion. Hopefully you find this to be an informative and a cautionary journey. Enjoy! Depending on how online you were in the early 2010s, you may have come across the odd story here or there about how Ulf Ekberg, keyboardist of Ace of Base, was part of a Nazi punk band called Commit Suiside in the early 80s. This, by his own admission, was indeed true. He has since signified his regret for this dark period and, we’re sure, hoped that would be the end of it. Only it wasn’t. Rumours of whether or not Ace of Base had actually secretly started out as some kind Aryan pop project have quietly bubbled away across the internet since then. There’s been numerous articles on it, some defending the idea and some rubbishing it, but no real definitive conclusion has been reached. Before we undertook this episode we reached out to the band for their comment, mostly because we wanted to give them the right to a fair response before we took a deep dive into this topic. Sadly, we heard nothing back, but we’ve done our best to keep things as fair as we could in this and next week’s episode. In part one we’ll go over the basics of the Nazi controversy surrounding Ace of Base, Ulf’s response to it, and the overall history of the band themselves. We also talk about Swedish pop, the country itself, Nazi punk and the darkness of that entire scene. We hope you enjoy this episode. We had fun doing it, even if going down the rabbit hole itself was a bit grim.

Episode 216 - Sound is a Pound #6

Your favourite Poundland album review show is BACK and we have quite the selection for you on this episode. The lads have gifted each other with the following three albums: Mark has Alisha Rules the World by Alisha’s Attic. Chris has Odelay by Beck. Dave has A Weekend in the City by Bloc Party. It’s an interesting and fun selection, with some highlights and a lot of lowlights. Does anyone actually remember Alisha’s Attic? Are Bloc Party one of the most boring “popular” bands in recent memory? Is Beck actually good? All this and more and is answered this week. It’s a riotous time. Enjoy! REMINDER: It’s record club shipping time and we’re sending some cracking albums to our subscribers. Want free albums every month? Find out more below!

Episode 215 - The Covermount Mixtape: Uncut "The Playlist" June 2006

We promised to make our covermount episodes a recurring feature and we are here to make good on that promise. This week Crag joins us again and we’re talking about a “collection” that was included with the June 2006 issue of Uncut Magazine imitatively called “The Playlist”. If you were to think of words that end in “able” the first one that springs to mind with this covermount is “forgettable”. Sandwiched in between (admittedly brilliant) tracks from the likes of Siouxise and the Banshees and Al Green is some truly beige music. There are other stand outs of course, but the whole thing is downright bizarre. In our last covermount episode we hypothesised on what the real purpose was for covermount CDs for magazines such as Kerrang! And Metal Hammer; was it to promote new bands by using established acts to get people’s attention? Was it simply a good way to make money from smaller labels/bands/management companies by promising them an audience that was sure to be rapt with attention when they found out someone such as, say, the Deftones, would be contributing a track? We’re not entirely sure, but the feeling was certainly that at least they were trying to promote new music. Uncut’s motivations are just as opaque and baffling only in a completely different way. Shoved in between tracks from the The Small Faces, The Waterboys and the aforementioned Al Green and Siouxie and the Banshees is a grab bag of indie, electro and country garbage laid out across 16 tracks. Whatever the purpose of this covermount was, it certainly was not to promote new music, or even, it seems, particularly good music. The title “The Playlist” is probably the giveaway here – their ethos seems to be akin to what we all do with Spotify playlists now. That is, they wanted to chuck together some songs they thought were cool and then offer for free to their readers. A noble intention perhaps, but we can’t help but think many of their readers were familiar with some of these bands already. Did you enjoy it? Let us know in the comments below. REMINDER: Our Patreon is now a RECORD CLUB where we will send you a digital and/or vinyl record from the host of your choice every month. We’ll be shipping May’s lot very soon but since this is an ongoing thing, there’s still plenty of time to get involved. Learn more www.patreon.com/unsungpod

Episode 214 - New History Warfare Vol. 2: Judges by Colin Stetson

We’re men of our word. As we look to clear all of our outstanding commitments from our old Patreon model (info on the new one - the Unsung Record Club - can be found here), there was one album we were asked to do that we’d been putting off for a while - New History Warfare Vol. 2: Judges by Colin Stetson. Our top subscriber Cory Robinson asked us to do this a while back, but it took us ages to get around to it. Why? Well, we actually tried to do it earlier on in the year. We listened to the record and thought that it would make a very interesting episode, but none of us could quite connect with it. A few episodes passed and we realised that we had to stop putting this one off and just go for it. For a podcast that primarily deals in rock music, and the various subgenres of, we do our best to expand our palette where possible. We’ve covered jazz briefly in the past of course, but nothing quite as avant-garde as this. This album, and indeed most of Colin’s work, requires the listener to be in a certain mood. It’s a mood that doesn’t come easily when you’re unfamiliar with the genre, and it’s also something you can only really tackle if you’re feeling up to the task because this is complex, challenging stuff. It’s also musically and technically impressive. Oh, and physically impressive too - the things this guy can do on his own with just a saxophone and a bunch of mics in one room are truly stunning. So as you can imagine, it took us while to get into the mindset to tackle this album. On this episode, alongside chatting about Colin Stetson’s extensive discography - soundtrack work included - we talk about mood albums as a whole, and discuss why it can sometimes be difficult to get into a song/band/album if you’re just not in the mood for it. We also discuss how this affects the creation of this podcast as a whole. Yeah, that’s right, we get fucking introspective this week folks. Is this an unsung classic? We certainly feel it is…

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